Eucalyptus Cake
by XxBloodsbanexX
Summary: While playing tag, something interesting falls from the sky. Just another strange day in Happy Tree Valley? Welcome to the depute of my first OC, Ripple! Please read and review!


******Thanks for reading!**  


**This is like, almost 4,000 words all on it's own. Wow. I did NOT expect it to get this long.**

**For those of you who've read what I have of Blissfully Ill, you'll know that I was debating on putting three of my own OC's into the story. Deciding against it (I didn't want to discourage any potential fans), I kept them out. So, I've decided to give them each their own little one-shot, to show how they would have arrived in Happy Tree Valley.**

**This one-shot was originally supposed to be one of three - one for all of my OC's - but I never got around to it and decided this one worked well enough on its own. Besides, Ripple has to be my favorite of all my OC's (I've thought up of two more, so... yeis). Anyways, I hope you likie. **

***takes sip of milkshake***

**Hm. I usually have more to say in these A/N's. Ah well.**

* * *

-Ripple-

The leaves were green, and it was mid-afternoon when Toothy walked into the forest. His tail swaying back and forth; the purple beaver hummed to himself, head upturned. His gaze raked the branches above him where long, soft green leaves wavered in the cool spring breeze. Light filtered through the tree limbs and speckled the grass-lined path before Toothy. The beaver stretched an arm out, watching with indifferent amusement as his fur went from light purple to dark as spots of light ran across the length of his person.

Eventually Toothy entered a small, triangular clearing. The beaver halted at the edge of the trees. He licked his lips, poking his tongue between the gap in his front teeth and then whistled sharply. The sound cut through the trees, did not echo, but its cry seemed to hang in the air like an unfinished question.

Toothy waited patiently, plucking one of the dark green leaves and tearing it into smaller strips. Nearly three minutes later, the beaver spotted something bright yellow poking from behind the coverage of leaves. Smirking, he strolled over to the nearest tree, which stood nearly in the center of the clearing, and looked up. "Ripple? Ripple, you up there?"

A face emerged from a group of leaves. It was round, furry, and had an adorable oval shaped grey nose which, while large, fit its face just right. The eyes were a crisp hazel color, and the animal had large round ears which were yellow with longer, softer white fur at the ends. The animal's face was blank, and as it stared at Toothy he couldn't help but smile. "Hi Ripple!"

"What do you want?" was all Ripple the koala would say.

"I came to invite you over to my house," Toothy said plainly, rotating his body so that he looked at the koala 'right side up'. She was hanging from an invisible tree branch, holding on with both feet and one hand. The other arm appeared by her head, gently plopping a leaf into her mouth. As Ripple chewed, the beaver below her added, "Please? I know it's still your feeding time-"

"It's _always _feeding time," Ripple said tersely, though not meanly. Toothy resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "I want you to come over."

"Why?"

"Just… because." Toothy had a reason, but he couldn't actually tell her. What was it Giggles had told him? She said something about trying to be suave. Toothy sighed, realizing that it might have been a good idea to ask the chipmunk what suave meant.

The koala above him breathed out slowly through her nose, letting herself rotate as she held herself up. Toothy turned his own body with her swaying. "I don't know," she said, sounding uninterested. "I still have one more consecutive hour of eating to do. And then I'll have to sleep for twelve hours. And then, by the time I wake up it'll be morning. Then I'll have breakfast, take a nap, and then eat for another three hours."

"But you do that every day," Toothy said. "Don't you want to try something new?"

"Why? I quite like eating and sleeping all day. I wonder why everyone doesn't do it."

"Nothing would get done if no one did anything."

"I get plenty done not doing anything."

"But all you do is eat and sleep!"

"Yeah, but I get it done."

Toothy sighed, trying not to smile at Ripple's logic. He wasn't here to argue. He was here to lure her away from her little hideout and take her to her surprise.

"Do you know what today is?" the beaver said before he could stop himself. Toothy immediately wished he could take his words back. He wasn't supposed to say that! Now she'd know for sure!

The koala didn't seem to notice, but Toothy knew she was smart. Maybe her face muscles just weren't capable of showing it. "I don't know. What _is _today?"

"Well, uh…" Toothy tried to think of something quickly, but nothing came to mind. The only thing he could think to say was, "Today is the one year anniversary for when you arrived at Happy Tree Valley."

"Oh, yeah. It is, isn't it?" For a moment, Ripple's face showed something like surprise. "Wow, a year already? It hardly feels like it's been that long."

"Yeah." Toothy grinned up at Ripple and the koala gave him one of her genuine smiles. The beaver shivered in delight. It was difficult to get Ripple to show any strong emotions other than sarcasm and indifference. He always felt such accomplishment whenever he got Ripple to smile. As the koala bear slowly climbed down to a lower branch, Toothy thought back to when she'd first arrived at Happy Tree Valley.

XxX

The day was sunny, birds were singing, and the Happy Tree Friends were playing tag in a large clearing at the edge of town. Cuddles was 'it' and Toothy had jumped into a low hanging tree to escape the yellow rabbit's paws. Cuddles had quickly lost interest and had changed direction, aiming for Lifty and Shifty. Both raccoons were trying to trip the each other, running away from Cuddles. Giggles, Petunia, Flaky and Lammy were huddled in a group on the other side of the clearing. From his vantage point, Toothy could see Flaky gripping onto Giggles's shoulders as the chipmunk pointed towards Cuddles. Petunia saw the rabbit was heading for them and jumped into the bushes.

Flippy was hiding in the shadows. Handy, the Mole and Mime were standing idly beside the tree Toothy was in. None of them were playing. Lumpy, being the empty-headed dingbat he was, somehow mistook tag for hide-and-seek – he stood in the middle of the clearing with two branches in his hands. He held the branches in front of his face as if they camouflaged him from all eyes. The moose chuckled as Cuddles ignored him while chasing someone else, thinking that is disguise was ingenious and that he'd never be found. Toothy shook his head sadly at the moose. Even _he _wasn't that dense, and Toothy didn't mind admitting that most things flew over his head.

Just as Cuddles had tagged Sniffles, a shadow appeared at the edge of the clearing. It was a small shadow and looked like some kind of square; the shadow grew larger and larger every second. The Happy Tree Friends all looked up to see something falling from the sky. Those on the ground couldn't tell what is was, but Toothy could. It looked like some kind of large wooden object, maybe even a box. It was falling pretty quickly.

Flaky yelped, jumping from behind Giggles and into the bushes. The other animals followed her lead, edging towards the trees and away from the approaching shadow. Toothy was safe in the tree, but Lumpy still hadn't moved. He was quite oblivious to the danger which was about to befall him.

In another second, the box landed. Lumpy was crushed beneath the weight of the falling wooden object. Blood and body parts exploded, shooting into the bushes and coating the grass around the box in scarlet liquid. Flaky screamed again and so did Lammy. The other Tree Friends all gasped or shouted in surprise at the suddenness of it. Toothy climbed down from the tree, landing on his feet in the grass. He jumped back when he saw one of Lumpy's fingers lying in the grass next to his foot.

There was a moment of silence. No one went towards the box, not even Flippy, who was stared at it curiously. Toothy tried to direct his small ears towards the box in hopes of hearing if anything was inside. There was no sound.

Hesitantly, Toothy took a step forward. All eyes flicked towards him and then back to the box. Toothy continued on, stepping over and around the blood spatters and body parts until he got to the box. He examined its surface. It had landed either on its top or bottom, with the square ends facing down and up. The four rectangular faces were plain. Toothy took a step back and jumped, gripping onto the lid of the box. Pulling himself up just enough to see the top, he noticed four holes. He reached to stick his finger in one but lost his grip and fell back onto the bloody ground.

Seeing that Toothy's brief inspection hadn't led to decapitation or impalement, the others slowly began to walk towards him. The beaver sat up and put his ear to the box. He gave it a good knock and then waited. After a few seconds, a dull thud answered him back.

"There's something inside," Flippy said, having heard the thud. The green bear looked stressed, but Toothy supposed it was just him trying to keep Evil from inspecting the box instead. Flaky gave him a concerned look and then decided standing behind him would help both him and her. Giggles and Cuddles both knocked the box themselves. Only one knock was heard when they stopped.

"What's inside?" Shifty asked, pushing his way through the crowd. Lifty followed closely behind. As the two raccoons began kicking the box, Toothy noticed one of Lumpy's antlers sticking out from beneath the box. In a rare moment of quick thinking, Toothy grabbed hold of the antler, put his foot on the base and pulled, breaking it off. Then, gesturing for everyone else to step back, the beaver took the bent end of the antler and jabbed the straight end into what he hoped was the door. After one or two more tries, he managed to get the sharp tip inside. Toothy pushed the antler in deeper and then he began to use it as a lever. The wooden door resisted at first, but after another second it swung off of the box. Almost instantly Toothy was buried alive by a mountain of green leaves.

The beaver squirmed beneath the leaves, feeling small round objects digging into his back. The others had begun taken a step back but were now all speaking at once. Toothy reached upwards and his hand met something soft. Toothy pulled his hand away, pushed himself up and his head burst past the surface of the leaves.

Toothy was face to face with an animal he'd never ever seen before. Instinct told him it was a female, though he couldn't quite tell on his own. Her face was bored, yet a sparkle of interest shone in her brown eyes. She was chewing on one of the many green leaves which had attacked Toothy. Her ears were quite large, with white at the ends. Her chest and stomach, from what Toothy could see, were also white. Her breath reached him and the smell of the crushed leaf assaulted him. Toothy sneezed and then fought to stand up. The small objects dug into his feet and the beaver stumbled backwards into the leaves again.

"Who are you?" Flippy asked, reassured by seeing not a monster but another animal falling out of the mysterious box. The other Friends gathered around. Mime gently helped Toothy out of the leaves and onto his feet. Toothy thanked him and then looked down to see what he'd been standing on. There were hundreds of oddly-shaped seeds littering the ground and pile of leaves. They must have come from inside the box as well.

"How'd you fall outta the sky?" Lifty and Shifty both asked. The yellow and white animal blinked at them, turned around until she was on her back, and then said plainly, "I'm Ripple."

"Ripple?" Giggles asked, taking another step forward. The strange animal nodded. "Yeah."

"Well, _what _are you, then?" Sniffles asked, gently pushing his way towards Ripple. "I've never seen an animal like you before."

"I am a marsupial."

"A marsupi-what?" Cuddles asked. Ripple slowly pushed herself into a sitting position. "Marsupial. Y'know, a pouched animal."

"Pouched?"

"I have a pouch."

"Animals can have pouches?"

"Yes. Marsupials can. Which I am. A marsupial, I mean."

"Where?" Flippy asked curiously. Ripple glanced at him, and then slid her hand past a line on her belly. Now that she was sitting up, Toothy could see that not only were her ears and stomach white, but there were splotches of the color dotting her rump and going up her neck, stopping just beneath her shoulder blades. The marsupial also had a slight accent Toothy wasn't used to hearing. Her voice was soft and she spoke slowly, as if going faster was a waste of energy. Ripple pulled out a few leaves from her pouch and then began munching on them.

"Cool…" Lifty said. "Yeah, that'd be handy…" agreed Shifty. The two raccoons exchanged a look and snickered.

"What kind of animal are you?" Sniffles asked. He'd pulled a notebook out of nowhere and a pen from the pocket attached to his person. Ripple gave him a look, but then fell onto her back again. She kept one hand inside of her pouch as if too lazy to pull it back out. "I'm a koala."

"A koala? Where are you native?"

"Well, um, I myself was raised in captivity, but I know most koala's live in Australia."

"Australia?"

"Yeah."

"What's captivity?" Flaky asked shyly from behind Flippy. Ripple said, "It means I was raised in a zoo, with humans."

"Humans?" Toothy asked, curious. He crawled onto the bed of leaves and glanced down at Ripple. She stared back up at him, her face retaining its bored status. Her eyes, however, glittered with something Toothy didn't recognize. "Yeah, humans. Most of them weren't so bad…"

"Did you live with other koalas?"

"Nah. We're a solitary kind."

"And what is your scientific name?"

"Huh?" Ripple's emotionless frown turned into one of thought. "Ah, I know what you mean. I think it's something like _Phascolarctos cinereus; _why do you want to know?"

"Sniffles likes to keep records of all of the animals who live in Happy Tree Valley," Petunia told her, hands on hips and feet keeping well away from the blood stains in the grass. "It's his thing."

"And you're current conservation status?"

"Least concern."

"And what _kind_ of koala are you? Are there other kinds?"

"Yes, there are three types, but it's mostly depends on where they live. I myself am more of a subspecies. _Phascolarctos cinereus aurum."_

"What?"

"Golden koala."

"Ah, I see. Intriguing." Sniffles scribbled everything down and then gave the koala a smile. "I'm Sniffles. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I've never met a koala before. And if I may, what is that accent you have?"

"It's Australian. It's not very strong, I'm surprised you noticed. I got it from my caretakers. They were Aussies."

"What are you doing here?" Flippy asked. He fingered one of the leaves. "I mean, in that box with all of these leaves."

For the first time, Ripple smiled, and the sight made Toothy's fur stand on end. He couldn't help thinking that she had a great face, unlike any the beaver had ever seen. Her nose was large, but it was cute at the same time, which Toothy didn't think was possible. And her marsupial-ness had intrigued him – how could an animal have a pouch on their belly? It was hardly visible too, beneath all of that soft white fur.

"The men at the zoo," Ripple said, "decided it took too much money to feed me."

"What about that thing on your ear?" Petunia asked. She pointed to a strange yellow object on the koala's ear. It seemed to have been attached to her. "Oh, that's just my tag," she explained. "They're probably using it to see where I am, make sure I survived the drop."

"So they just dumped you here?" Toothy asked. That seemed cruel. The koala before him shrugged. "No big deal. I have food. I can plant the seeds and grow more eucalyptus trees."

Sniffles perked up again. "Eucalyptus? Is that the kind of plant you eat?"

"Yeah. Hey, deer-boy, you might want to stay away." Mime had been sniffing the leaves. Now he jumped back, dropping the ones he held in his hand. "Eucalyptus leaves can be toxic in large amounts. Don't want to get food poisoning, do you?" Mime shook his head and backed away, glancing at the leaves with suspicion.

"Well," Flippy said, rubbing his forehead with a knuckle. "I guess you're here with us now. You can plant your trees here, since it's where you landed."

"How kind," Ripple said. She allowed herself to slide off of the pile and land on her feet. She stood with a sleepy slouch. Flaky's eyes widened and she squeaked. "Y-you're hand! It h-has t-two thumbs!"

"Wow, really?" Sniffles asked, trying to get a better look. Lifty and Shifty now stood on either side of the koala, inspecting her hands. Indeed, each hand had five digits, but two of them were opposable thumbs. All ten fingers had small, sharp, curved black claws as well. Toothy, without thinking, reached over and took one of Ripples hands to inspect it. "What are they for?" he asked.

Ripple took her hand back. "Climbing," she said simply. Then the koala suddenly looked very tired. "Hey, so uh, since I'm going to be living here, all of you need to get out of my clearing. I want to sleep."

A few of the Tree Friends huffed and mumbled indignantly, not liking her unfamiliar rudeness, but Toothy didn't want to get on her bad side. "Alright," he said eagerly, and began walking towards home. From behind, he heard Giggles ask, "Why is your name Ripple?"

"Oh. The caretakers at the zoo named me Ripple because… because…" There was a pause, and then Toothy heard Ripple yawn very loudly. Almost three seconds later everyone who was closest to her began to yawn as well. Whoever was behind them followed, and after another second or two, though Toothy was further away from then, he felt a yawn growing in his throat. The beaver yawned, wiping tears from his eyes and looked back at the others.

"Never mind…" said Giggles.

XxX

Toothy grinned. It had been a whole year since that day, and still Ripple was almost exactly the same. After Toothy had gone, Petunia told him the next day that Ripple had asked about Lumpy. The koala had wondered why no one seemed upset she'd inadvertently killed him. They'd explained to her the mysteries of Happy Tree Valley, and though it had been obvious Ripple disliked the news, she seemed content with the outcome of her abandonment.

Surprisingly, Ripple seemed very good at avoiding death, yet all she did was sleep. At one point the Mole accidentally set her food supply on fire (they found that eucalyptus leaves were very, _very _flammable), and she managed to avoid the fire simply by falling out of the tree and swimming across a nearby river, which worked as the border of her section of the Valley. While the Mole and Toothy (who'd been visiting) perished horribly, Ripple managed to save herself in the slowest way possible.

Toothy admired that about her. She took everything with a blank face and she never panicked. Even when she did die, she would accept it if she knew there was no way out. She'd even speed the process up, which was quite unheard of in Happy Tree Valley. Everyone was so used to running, urged by the instinctual need to survive, that they were dumbfounded at Ripple's ability to accept death. It didn't matter that she came back afterward – in a way it was scary. And she retained most of her memories and 'personal developments', unlike many of the other young friends. Even Toothy wasn't as developed as she was when it came to breaking the bonds of the Valley's strange time-work. **(1)**

All of the Tree Friends willingly helped Ripple plant her trees. The koala had been worried that the trees wouldn't grow faster than she'd finish her current food supply, but time moved differently in Happy Tree Valley – it took only three days for nearly all of the eucalyptus trees to grow. Some of them were very tall and some were very short. All of them had strong scents, like disinfectant, and Sniffles found that the oil made from the trees offered many uses, from medicine to perfume. At first Toothy had disliked the strong odor, but after spending so many days wandering the eucalyptus forest to bother Ripple, he'd grown used to the smell and even enjoyed it.

"I'm not stupid, Toothy," Ripple said, pulling the beaver from his flashback. She gave him another small smile. "I know what you're trying to do. I don't want to go."

"Aw, but why?" Toothy whined. Ripple, now sitting on a lower branch, kicked her legs and sighed again. "I don't like parties," she answered simply.

"You'll like this one," Toothy insisted. There wasn't much reason to pretend now if she knew what he was doing anyway. "Besides, Flaky organized it and she worked hard on getting everything ready."

The koala's ear twitched at Flaky's name. She'd become close friends with the red porcupine, strangely fond of the twitchy Friend's kind but untrusting spirit. Toothy knew that Ripple had a soft spot for Flaky, and hoped that using her name would convince her to come to the party.

"Well, if Flaky did it… but… I don't wanna." Toothy couldn't help but laugh at Ripple's strong unwillingness to go. She was devoted to Flaky, who was her closest girl-friend, but it was obvious she'd much rather eat and sleep than spend time with the porcupine.

"There's going to be cake."

Ripple's ears directed themselves at Toothy. She narrowed her eyes. "Cake?"

"Yeah."

"What kind of cake?"

"Eucalyptus, with _chocolate_ ice cream."

"Chocolate ice cream?"

Toothy nodded, smirking. Ripple licked her lips, eyes sparkling. Finally she said, "Alright, I'll come. For the cake."

Toothy clapped his hands and said, "Great! C'mon, everyone's waiting. You'll have to act surprised!"

"Uh huh. I'm coming down."

"Okay."

"Uhm… whatever."

Toothy hadn't thought about moving from beneath the koala; now Ripple jumped and landed right on Toothy. He gasped as his body slammed into the ground. Ripple slowly rolled off of his back, stood up and said, "Thanks for catching me," with a smirk on her face.

"No problem," Toothy wheezed. Sitting up, he winced. A piece of his tooth had chipped off from the fall. Ripple glanced at it and said, "Oh, sorry." Her face hadn't changed, but she sounded apologetic, and Toothy noticed a flash of remorse in her eyes. Toothy shrugged, rubbing his tooth with one hand and grabbing Ripple's with the other. It was still odd, feeling two thumbs holding onto his palm, but he'd grown somewhat used to the unfamiliar touch. "It's fine, Ripple. You didn't mean to."

Ripple smiled again, eyes half lidded. In the light, Toothy saw, her eyes turned more green than brown, with the lighter brown shrinking around the iris. Coincidentally, when in the dark her eyes became browner, with bright green becoming a thin ring around her eyes. Toothy was fascinated with Ripple's eyes, and was proud to know he was the only one out of all the Tree Friends who could read her emotions from them.

"To my house!" Toothy said, starting for town. Ripple allowed herself to be dragged closely behind. "There better be cake," she grumbled, pulling a leaf from her pouch and eating it. Toothy let go of her hand and fiddled with the yellow tag on her ear. Her ear twitched and pulled away.

"What if there isn't?" Toothy asked. Ripple slowed down, gave him a look, and then smirked. "Then I guess I'll be going there for you, since you're so eager," she said. Toothy blushed. He began licking his teeth out of habit as Ripple gestured forwards. "Now c'mon, lets go. I've got some cake to eat and two hours before bedtime."

* * *

_**(1) - See Chapter 4 of Flaky Flips out.**_

**So, what do you think? Likable? Believable? Someone you wouldn't mind reading about again? Tell me what you think of Ripple in your review, which I know you'll write, because you don't want to disappoint me.**

***finishes shake***

***stares***


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